How can a person be right with God? This is one of the most central questions to all of human existence. It’s probably true that most religions are an attempt on some level to answer this question.

When considered seriously, human beings know that it is not an easy question to answer. Most of us have some awareness of what Christians would call “sin”. That is, that we fall short of the moral standard that is required of us. And that, in some way, this distances us from God in his holiness and purity.

How can be right with him? How can we have communion with him?

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector speaks to this question in such an important way. Let’s consider it.

The Pharisee

To begin, Jesus spoke to “certain persons who were confident in themselves that they were righteous whilst despising everyone else”.

The word for righteous relates to the question I just mentioned. It comes from a group of words that is used frequently in the New Testament, the root word of which is dikaiosune. This word relates not only to moral uprightness but to being justified in the sight of God.

So these people’s answer to the question of how I can be right with God is essentially through my own personal moral goodness.

In this story, the Pharisee enters the Temple with great confidence, standing upright and praying about himself. One of the things he says is, “I fast twice a week and tithe from everything whatsoever that I earn.” Now, it’s true that he thanks God for his wonderful situation but really this comes across as a religious gloss on what is essentially pride in his own religious accomplishments: “Look at how great I am.”

And the way that this is made clear is in his attitude to other people: “God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of mankind – rapacious, unjust, adulterous – or even like this tax-collector.”

Why compare himself to other people in this way? Simply, because it makes him feel good about himself. I am right; they are wrong. I am good; they are bad. I’m committed; they are lazy. And so on and so on.

I have to say that I’ve come across a lot of this sort of thing in the Christian world. Christ obviously understood people’s hearts and could foresee this. Whole denominations of the Christian Church become obsessed with comparing themselves favourably to other Christians. “I thank you, God, that I am not like other men. I’ve got my doctrine straight. I do not compromise over moral issues. I am in the right part of the Christian Church. I am upright in every way and will not have any contact with those who are unclean in my sight.”

For anyone on the receiving end, it’s a deeply unpleased and ungracious attitude. It’s amazing how easy we find it to take the teaching and example of Christ and to turn it into fractious, ugly, judgemental and without love, charity, or humility.

I should say that I think this is a particularly apt word for those people who consider theological orthodoxy and the tradition of the Church to be important, indeed central, to the faith. This can quite easily turn into the kind of self-righteous Pharisaism that Jesus denounced.

The Tax Collector

Having said that, there are some things that we can do to avoid this kind of nasty religion. Let’s think about the Tax Collector. Jesus tells us that he stood some way off and wouldn’t lift his eyes to heaven and that he beat upon his breast. Even his body language spoke of his awareness of his unworthiness before God.

He said, quite simply, “God, grant mercy to me, a sinner.”

So, firstly, he recognised the problem: I am a sinner.

This is perhaps an unfashionable observation today: we are all sinners. What does this mean? It means that there is a moral law which is grounded in the holiness and perfection of God and which is binding on every single human being alive. And it means that we often fall short of what is required of us in this regard and we frequently therefore encounter feelings of guilt and shame.

For some people, that description will be more than familiar. Many people’s lives are beset by guilt and shame – for things done in the past, for habits that one can’t shake in the present. Christian or not, we know that we are falling short. We know that we’re not doing what we should be. But we can’t meet the standard for some reason. We just keep failing.

For others, they may be less aware of sin. They may be like the Pharisee: self-righteous and upright in comparison with those they find contemptible. But those who have this attitude are self-deceived. They are sinners too. But they choose not to focus on the areas of their lives and character where they fall short.

This is a way of testing what I am saying: think about the greatest moral failure you have in your life. It could be a habit that you can’t shake for reason. Or it could be an instinctive or emotional reaction that you have to something that you can’t seem to stop. We can come to church and get ourselves together for a couple of hours. But what about the rest of the time?

As I say, this is true for everyone, including me and including all apparently religious or holy people. I, Fr Jamie Franklin, your priest, am a sinner. I don’t need to go into it all here and now but I could certainly do so. I get things wrong on a daily basis. My wife and my children know this about me. Anyone who knows me well know this about me. I want to do certain things. I want to be a certain way. But the things I want to do and the way I want to be somehow don’t come about for some reason. Perhaps I’m making some slow progress, but, on the whole, I am frequently astounded at my lack of holiness, despite my best efforts. And I am meant to be a priest. I am meant to help others in their faith. And yet I can’t do it myself. What use am I?

And perhaps it’s the same for you. Perhaps you have the same voice in your mind: I can’t believe I’m still like this. I’m meant to be a Christian. I’m meant to take the name of Christ and yet still I persist in my rebellion and sin. What could I possibly do or be for God when I am like this?

Let me encourage you, friends – or rather let the words of Christ encourage you – there is hope. But this hope does not come from ourselves by making more moral effort. It comes from God. It comes from Christ and the Gospel.

This is clearly implied in the prayer of the Tax Collector. “God, grant mercy to me, a sinner.”

The Greek word for “grant mercy” or “be merciful” is hilaskomai, which is a word that means some thing like, “expiate” or “make atonement for”.

To understand this, let’s go back to that original question: How can I be right before God? One of the central answers that people have come up with in many of the world’s culture and religions is “sacrifice”: I am obviously sinful, but I can atone for my sin by making a sacrifice. That sacrifice might be of food – a libation poured out to the gods – It might be an animal, slaughtered and offered up. In many world cultures the sacrifice has even been that of human beings.

The Good News that comes to us from the Gospel is that atonement has been made for our sin. A sacrifice has been offered. This sacrifice is not of food or animals or other people. But this sacrifice has been offered by God himself through Jesus Christ. Our sin is such a serious problem that it required the greatest sacrifice imaginable, which is the sacrifice of God’s own Son, given for us upon the cross.

Through the cross, God has purchased our souls for himself. Through the cross, our sin has been removed from us and put upon God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Through the cross, our unrighteousness has been placed upon him and his righteousness – his rightness with God – has been given to us.

So, for the Christian, the answer to the question: How can I be right with God? Is that we can be right with God through the blood of Jesus Christ. Only this great, final, complete and perfect sacrifice is sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.

So, friends, I stand before you a miserable sinner like everyone else. You are the same as me. And, yet, we can be here together, justified by God’s grace, reconciled to God through his Son, Jesus Christ, without shame, without guilt, without fear, without the need to compare ourselves with others – whether favourably or unfavourably. Our atonement is accomplished; the sacrifice is complete. The Tax Collector returned to his house justified.

The Beginning and the Way

Friends, let the truth change your hearts. Refresh yourselves in the waters of God’s mercy. One of the most amazing things about the Gospel is that it not only gives you a way to begin, so to speak, a way to come into the presence of God. It gives you the desire and the means to continue striving after holiness. It changes you inside to know that God has shown his love in such a sacrificial and lavish and complete way. The only response can surely be a life laid down in love and service for him: Given all of this, how can I keep from singing his praise? How can I keep from giving my love and my life when he has already given so freely and so completely for me? The message of the Gospel is what changes us, from the inside-out.

Two different religions: one of pride, self-righteousness, obsession with rules and appearances; one of humility, dependence upon God’s grace in Christ, a transformation of the deepest depths of the heart so that love may motivate, love may inspire, love may endure.

“For everyone who exalts himself with be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen